Troy Baker, most famous for his performance as Joel in The Last of Us and its sequel, has endorsed an NFT company. Voiceverse NFT allows you to use an AI to generate voiceovers that sound like your favorite celebrities.
“Imagine being able to create customized audiobooks, YouTube videos, e-learning lectures, or even podcasts with your favorite voice,” the company says in a tweet. “All without the hassle of additional legal work. This also allows people with limited resources to access professional-grade voices more easily.”
Basically, if you have a monkey NFT avatar on Twitter and you want to animate it and make Troy Baker’s voice come out of its mouth, you can do that. No idea why you’d want to, but you can. You even get a little digital receipt, though anyone on the internet can still save what video you create. But it’s yours. Kind of.
Actor Troy Baker Endorses NFT Voice AI That Aims to Replace Actors
Voiceverse says it plans to allow you to speak in the voice of the characters you are playing as in a video game. If you’ve ever played an online video game, you probably know how that one will end.
While Voiceverse says the actors who help feed the AI voice samples will get royalties, it’s difficult to know how this stacks up to union rates. Actors in the video game industry have fought for years to get compensated better for their work, which is often hard on the vocal cords because they have to record hours of effort sounds, death cries, and other taxing noises. They also don’t often get residuals as actors do in movies.
One major concern around this tech is how it could undercut new actors. When anyone can use an AI to generate the voice of a known actor, it may make it more difficult for newcomers to stand out in such a competitive industry. It could potentially also devalue the work voice actors do.
Voiceverse is founded by the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which has recently made the news because of stolen NFTs. Some claim that NFTs are a Ponzi scheme since they require a constant stream of new investors for a lucky few to make money on them. NFTs can also be easily used for money laundering, thanks to the anonymity of sales using cryptocurrencies. Criminals don’t need to run money through a front when they can simply buy a cartoon monkey from themselves and claim it as legitimate profit from digital assets.
Other criticisms arise from the environmental impact of the technology. The Ethereum platform uses 48.14 kilowatt-hours of energy per transaction, and there are thousands of transactions per day. This number will only increase as more people employ the tech. To put that into perspective, the average US household uses 28.9 kWh per day. It’s also entirely unnecessary – most of the things NFTs currently offer could be done without using power-draining blockchain technology.
“I’m partnering with @VoiceverseNFT to explore ways where together we might bring new tools to new creators to make new things, and allow everyone a chance to own & invest in the IP’s (sic) they create,” Baker said on Twitter. “We all have a story to tell. You can hate. Or you can create. What’ll it be?”
The gaming community has been vocally critical of NFTs for many of the reasons stated above. Players are also worried that they will be the next insidious monetization strategy following loot boxes and online passes. While publishers are trying to push it as “play to earn”, where players can make money from playing and creating within games, the house always wins. And outside of that, it means games are built around the technology first rather than, you know, aiming to be a good video game.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
